WEST RIDING ELECTION

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 79, 15 November 1911, Page 5

WEST RIDING ELECTION

(To the Editon -'‘Stratford Post.”) Sir j —•'TliAt your ‘.correspondent “Three Votes” should make his account of‘my misdeeds a ; cloak for anonymous • attack on the - foreman and ranger is. about as mean arid contemptible a thing as I have como across; but he might almost as well have signed his name, because there is probably only one 'man in the riding capable of such an action. The foreman has no 1 superior in this or any other country, and the state of his roads proves it, especially when you remember that the riding’s finance, which has been heavily taxed for the renewal in concrete work of old faulty tunnels and culverts, does not. permit of his doing all that he could wish. Had he failed to report to the Council Mr. Anderson’s taking for his private use of the metal on Mariaia Road, which will certainly be required by ourselves or our successors for the upkeep of the road itself, the foreman would have been guilty of a grave omission. And why should lie favour Mr. Anderson more than anybody else, and why should the Council do so? Plenty of other settlers have been made to pay for road material, and plenty of them make the Council pay every year. Then as to the ranger, who cannot be everywhere at once, and who has a most unpleasant task-: The Council has several times investigated charges of neglect of duty, favouritism, and so on, ' and every time the charge has failed. Not long ago he impounded a horse of mine, and quite right, too, although it “had only been out a-few minutes” (all night, most likely, for a boy had failed to fasten a gate). Quitri’ recently- a number of poor hungry bullocks were alongside my fences night after night doing nobody any harm in particular, and the ranger knew nothing : about it. How should lie, unless he were sent for, with the hundreds of miles of road that he has to watch? My oivn alleged wrong-doings I am, of course, not going to deal with; I have lived and acted in .the strong light of a full publicity for a good many years, and am not afraid of the judgment of my fellows; but the one charge which your correspondent makes of failure to discharge duty is an absolute falsehood., The Council appointed as assessor one of the keenest judges of land value (and one of the strongest men) to be found in the county, to sit at the Valuation Court and watch the interests of settlers; and I have no doubt; that be saw the Ifairest of fair play towards any who appealed. But fancy a' man who proudly signs himself “Three Votes” souealing because he has to pay land tax! And then he crows over my defeat! Well, I can still keep my tail up. In spite of all the canvassing of the other side and the fact that I neither directly nor indirectly asked a single soul for a vote, the result shows that there are plenty of generous hearts in the riding who, notwithstanding my shortcomings, of which I am deeply and humbly conscious, can remember something of the other side, also.—l am, etc., G. A. MARCHANT. Stratford, November 14.